The Video Game Thread
- Thread starter James Stevenson
- Start date
You're going to have to expand that acronym.
D F O
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
DFO
I hate all of you.
I was hoping that, in his explanation of the game, he would also try to sell me on the concept a bit. But I have made a habit of intentionally not Googling things on here, if nothing else but as a measure to drive the post count up.
Chris Taylor
Contributor
Dungeon Fighter Online?
It's an interesting one, MMO style 2.5D Beat em up. Extra credits talks it up a lot being great design with the pacing, difficulty, basically everything good they want a MMO to be.
I tried it for a bit, the mechanics were lots of fun, but the fatal flaw for me was any way I could make my character look different cost money. Level 1 and Level Capped characters always look exactly the same (Assuming you're going free to play) and while you get a decent sense of progression with mastery of mechanics and unlocking more of your abilities, that never translates over into a visual sense.
I played it like 3 years ago, so things may well have changed since then, but hey
It's an interesting one, MMO style 2.5D Beat em up. Extra credits talks it up a lot being great design with the pacing, difficulty, basically everything good they want a MMO to be.
I tried it for a bit, the mechanics were lots of fun, but the fatal flaw for me was any way I could make my character look different cost money. Level 1 and Level Capped characters always look exactly the same (Assuming you're going free to play) and while you get a decent sense of progression with mastery of mechanics and unlocking more of your abilities, that never translates over into a visual sense.
I played it like 3 years ago, so things may well have changed since then, but hey
A lot has changed but yeah that's mostly still the case. The global version is new and is directly run by the devs and they have done a good job with engaging with the players tho.
also they have monthly temporary avatars that you can purchase for in-game currency that are dirt cheap and can be made permanent with tickets purchased with in-game points that you get just for playing. As well as cash shop avatars that are permanent to begin with.
also they have monthly temporary avatars that you can purchase for in-game currency that are dirt cheap and can be made permanent with tickets purchased with in-game points that you get just for playing. As well as cash shop avatars that are permanent to begin with.
EVO '15 is right around the corner.
Leffen's got to take this.
Leffen's got to take this.
ok have a real keyboard again
Dungeon Fighter Online is a 2.5D Streets of Rage style beat-em-up MMORPG that is still huge in S.Korea and China, despite being like 7 years old or whatever at this point.
It does use a gating mechanism (Fatigue Points) to keep you from playing FOREVER and dying in a PC Cafe but it ends up not being that bad if you really do want to play forever, since each character on your account has their own FP bar and there are easily acquired FP potions and such.
Pros:
- fast-paced gameplay with an arcade-style feel to it, down to special move commands for every skill (you can hotkey skills as well).
- each class is pretty well fleshed out with its own unique feel. There's the swordsman who made a deal with ghosts to gain spoooooooky powers, the little girl witch who assembles contraptions that MIGHT not explode, the possessed priest who turns into a werewolf because demons, the female gunner who flies around with a jetpack throwing grenades at everything, the large-chested elf girl who rides a unicorn, etc. Whatever your personal preferences are, there's probably a class that you will enjoy.
- after the massive rework of the earlier sections of the game (lvl1-55 areas), a lot of the stupidly frustrating areas were in-game retconned out of existence and replaced with a much better early leveling experience.
- the pacing for the first 45 levels or so is very good.
- going from lvl83-85 (level cap) is actually very fast.
- a free-to-play game that has reined in a lot of the pay-to-win aspects. Cash shop is mostly cosmetic or quality of life stuff. Cash shop avatar packages are also tradeable so f2p players can also have their toys and goldbuyers can support the devs instead of shady identity theft ring sites.
- the endgame gear can't be traded and thus can't be purchased on the auction house. No amount of goldbuying can get you the best gear. Also the core endgame sets are gated behind knowledge of gimmicks rather than a pure gear check (and is accessible starting at lvl70). ALSO gated behind limited dungeon entries per day.
- with all of these gating mechanisms, you still advance pretty quickly. You can reach the level cap very quickly if you know what you're doing, farming your full endgame armor set takes about a month or 2 on average (slightly less if you pay for cash shop re-entries) and with a competent party you can do your daily entries in about an hour.
- PvP is very fighting-game-esque. While in the PvP channel all gear is normalized based on level and rarity while removing special effects, and you gain access to your full skill tree and the same skill points as a max level character. Gear/levels still matter to an extent so it's a nice compromise between letting PvPers have all the same tools while giving them incentives to do PvE content (that might entice them into using the cash shop).
- rewards you for making and playing a lot of alts. Having a bunch of medium-to-high level characters gives your entire account bonus exp and bonus stats, and lvl50+ characters can be summoned as assists for other characters. Lvl70+ characters can be sent out on missions to return with random loot.
- each area has its own feel and concept that differentiates it from the others. There's the ruins of a pre-retcon city that is now infested by mushroom headed zombies. Stopping the revival of a mind-controlling octopus demigod who is corrupting a bunch of librarians on a flying whale. Going to the moon to defend a city besieged by a militarized motorcycle gang and driving them back in a giant robot showdown. Chasing the remnants of said motorcycle gang army across the ocean on a train while fighting off alligator pirates and ninja turtles, all so you can save the princess from the gang's mafia don/cowboy boss. A romp through time and space to discover the culprit behind all the world's current problems. Clearing out a nation's power grid from the interference of a living volcano who is literally eating all of the energy produced there.
Cons:
- early pacing is good for the most part, but there are some early issues:
1) new characters run out of FP pretty much right after getting their first class upgrade. Occasionally there's an event for free FP potions for new characters but this comes up pretty much every time you make a new character.
2) there are a few bosses/sub-bosses early on that will pretty much insta-gib new players who don't know to respect their gimmicks, which are pretty easily played around once you realize they will kill you but are pretty frustrating the first time around.
- the pacing gets MUCH worse starting at around lvl46-47 or so, kinda like slamming into a wall. Which is fitting because the first pacing offender is the Iced Wall zone. Experienced players will grind a special dungeon in the previous zone till 50 just to skip as much of Iced Wall as they can. Iced Wall quests are all reliant on RNG drops from monsters, in numbers that require you to run maps very inefficiently, the quest experience isn't amazing. Given that the Iced Wall dungeons are literally nightmares remembering the pre-rework 1-55 areas it's kinda fitting I guess. At least Iced Wall is mercifully quick to get through all things considered. Then you go to...
- THE MOON aka Empyrean. Specifically the capital city, Ghent. Ghent is the first pre-rework area that you get to play and it shows. Given everything that has come before, Ghent as a zone is blissfully devoid of gimmicks. The problem is that enemy HP scaling jumps quite a bit and EXP scaling has not adjusted to Ghent no longer being the endgame zone. Finishing all the quests for a map barely gets you to 40% of a level. Your first character that reaches Ghent probably won't have access to the account-wide bonus exp/stats or assists yet to smooth it out. Ghent is where alts go to die. It's bearable because the maps themselves aren't terrible. Surely the next zone can't be worse.
- Starting from Ghent, the rest of the zones can be described as "cool concept, horrible experience curve that makes it better to skip half the content and just grind the special dungeon as soon as you unlock it."
- the gear grind is pretty frustrating as a lot of the endgame stuff can't be transferred between characters. Also weapons are MUCH better when upgraded to +12 and onwards, but can break starting at +11 and the success chance from +11 to +12 is like 30%? And gets worse for each level past that while the stats get exponentially better as well. Weapon reinforcement is pretty much the black hole that all the goldbuyer money disappears into.
Overall I think the good outweighs the bad (which is mostly just "it's a Korean MMO"). One "pro" that some might not see as such is that you can solo pretty much the entire game other than the actual endgame gear farming stage (which requires at least another player to get through gimmick sections).
Anyhow it was one of my favorite games when I was playing the NA beta years ago and I'm thrilled to have it back with much of the content that we never had before the NA servers died. And there's still plenty of content that hasn't been ported yet. If anybody wants to try it out, or already plays and wants someone to party with, hit me up on the Skype chat~ I have like 8 alts in early-ish levels and 8 more alts in the Iced Wall/Ghent range to play if you are just starting out lol.
Dungeon Fighter Online is a 2.5D Streets of Rage style beat-em-up MMORPG that is still huge in S.Korea and China, despite being like 7 years old or whatever at this point.
It does use a gating mechanism (Fatigue Points) to keep you from playing FOREVER and dying in a PC Cafe but it ends up not being that bad if you really do want to play forever, since each character on your account has their own FP bar and there are easily acquired FP potions and such.
Pros:
- fast-paced gameplay with an arcade-style feel to it, down to special move commands for every skill (you can hotkey skills as well).
- each class is pretty well fleshed out with its own unique feel. There's the swordsman who made a deal with ghosts to gain spoooooooky powers, the little girl witch who assembles contraptions that MIGHT not explode, the possessed priest who turns into a werewolf because demons, the female gunner who flies around with a jetpack throwing grenades at everything, the large-chested elf girl who rides a unicorn, etc. Whatever your personal preferences are, there's probably a class that you will enjoy.
- after the massive rework of the earlier sections of the game (lvl1-55 areas), a lot of the stupidly frustrating areas were in-game retconned out of existence and replaced with a much better early leveling experience.
- the pacing for the first 45 levels or so is very good.
- going from lvl83-85 (level cap) is actually very fast.
- a free-to-play game that has reined in a lot of the pay-to-win aspects. Cash shop is mostly cosmetic or quality of life stuff. Cash shop avatar packages are also tradeable so f2p players can also have their toys and goldbuyers can support the devs instead of shady identity theft ring sites.
- the endgame gear can't be traded and thus can't be purchased on the auction house. No amount of goldbuying can get you the best gear. Also the core endgame sets are gated behind knowledge of gimmicks rather than a pure gear check (and is accessible starting at lvl70). ALSO gated behind limited dungeon entries per day.
- with all of these gating mechanisms, you still advance pretty quickly. You can reach the level cap very quickly if you know what you're doing, farming your full endgame armor set takes about a month or 2 on average (slightly less if you pay for cash shop re-entries) and with a competent party you can do your daily entries in about an hour.
- PvP is very fighting-game-esque. While in the PvP channel all gear is normalized based on level and rarity while removing special effects, and you gain access to your full skill tree and the same skill points as a max level character. Gear/levels still matter to an extent so it's a nice compromise between letting PvPers have all the same tools while giving them incentives to do PvE content (that might entice them into using the cash shop).
- rewards you for making and playing a lot of alts. Having a bunch of medium-to-high level characters gives your entire account bonus exp and bonus stats, and lvl50+ characters can be summoned as assists for other characters. Lvl70+ characters can be sent out on missions to return with random loot.
- each area has its own feel and concept that differentiates it from the others. There's the ruins of a pre-retcon city that is now infested by mushroom headed zombies. Stopping the revival of a mind-controlling octopus demigod who is corrupting a bunch of librarians on a flying whale. Going to the moon to defend a city besieged by a militarized motorcycle gang and driving them back in a giant robot showdown. Chasing the remnants of said motorcycle gang army across the ocean on a train while fighting off alligator pirates and ninja turtles, all so you can save the princess from the gang's mafia don/cowboy boss. A romp through time and space to discover the culprit behind all the world's current problems. Clearing out a nation's power grid from the interference of a living volcano who is literally eating all of the energy produced there.
Cons:
- early pacing is good for the most part, but there are some early issues:
1) new characters run out of FP pretty much right after getting their first class upgrade. Occasionally there's an event for free FP potions for new characters but this comes up pretty much every time you make a new character.
2) there are a few bosses/sub-bosses early on that will pretty much insta-gib new players who don't know to respect their gimmicks, which are pretty easily played around once you realize they will kill you but are pretty frustrating the first time around.
- the pacing gets MUCH worse starting at around lvl46-47 or so, kinda like slamming into a wall. Which is fitting because the first pacing offender is the Iced Wall zone. Experienced players will grind a special dungeon in the previous zone till 50 just to skip as much of Iced Wall as they can. Iced Wall quests are all reliant on RNG drops from monsters, in numbers that require you to run maps very inefficiently, the quest experience isn't amazing. Given that the Iced Wall dungeons are literally nightmares remembering the pre-rework 1-55 areas it's kinda fitting I guess. At least Iced Wall is mercifully quick to get through all things considered. Then you go to...
- THE MOON aka Empyrean. Specifically the capital city, Ghent. Ghent is the first pre-rework area that you get to play and it shows. Given everything that has come before, Ghent as a zone is blissfully devoid of gimmicks. The problem is that enemy HP scaling jumps quite a bit and EXP scaling has not adjusted to Ghent no longer being the endgame zone. Finishing all the quests for a map barely gets you to 40% of a level. Your first character that reaches Ghent probably won't have access to the account-wide bonus exp/stats or assists yet to smooth it out. Ghent is where alts go to die. It's bearable because the maps themselves aren't terrible. Surely the next zone can't be worse.
- Starting from Ghent, the rest of the zones can be described as "cool concept, horrible experience curve that makes it better to skip half the content and just grind the special dungeon as soon as you unlock it."
- the gear grind is pretty frustrating as a lot of the endgame stuff can't be transferred between characters. Also weapons are MUCH better when upgraded to +12 and onwards, but can break starting at +11 and the success chance from +11 to +12 is like 30%? And gets worse for each level past that while the stats get exponentially better as well. Weapon reinforcement is pretty much the black hole that all the goldbuyer money disappears into.
Overall I think the good outweighs the bad (which is mostly just "it's a Korean MMO"). One "pro" that some might not see as such is that you can solo pretty much the entire game other than the actual endgame gear farming stage (which requires at least another player to get through gimmick sections).
Anyhow it was one of my favorite games when I was playing the NA beta years ago and I'm thrilled to have it back with much of the content that we never had before the NA servers died. And there's still plenty of content that hasn't been ported yet. If anybody wants to try it out, or already plays and wants someone to party with, hit me up on the Skype chat~ I have like 8 alts in early-ish levels and 8 more alts in the Iced Wall/Ghent range to play if you are just starting out lol.
The only Evo mainstage game I truly care about is Guilty Gear. I hope they rigged the brackets and put as many Japanese players in the same pools as possible so that there's SOME tension as to how it will all turn out.
Also I understand the appeal of flying out top players for the big ticket games, but whose bright idea was it to bring players like GO1 and Senaru to dumpster people in side events?
Are you an actual Leffen fan?
I think competitive Melee is interesting, because I watch hours and hours of it every week, but I don't really have strong favoritism as a fan, like I do when I watch other games / sports. Armada winning wouldn't be a very compelling story line to me,but a Leffen / Mango / PPMD story line each has their merits.
It's also interesting that Leffen is training with Mango this week. Leffen clearly has the edge these days, but I guess he has enough confidence to believe that he'll continue to figure Mango out more than Mango figures him out.
I will be glad to have Axe and Amsa back in the mix. Melee's high tiers are great and all, but big tournaments are so much better when you have the assorted hype Yoshi or Pikachu match. RIP Shroomed's Doc. (I'm a Doc main, if that's relevant)
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
This might as well have been Chinese. I haven't a clue what you're saying!
You gotta let the Melee flow through you.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Ah... Super Smash Bros. Melee!
Chris Taylor
Contributor
Jesus that's long!
I will say, given I was someone who had never played a side scrolling beat em up before (I joined gaming in the N64 days, so everything was 3D) It was pretty damn fun.
Not quite fun enough for me to give up World of Warcraft (which thanks to a new EVE Online style Plex system, is now free to play for me
) but pretty sweet for a summer while I was brokeYes, I'm a Leffen fan. He's a really smart player, always looking for playing on point. And I really like his personality and how many people despise him.
Leffen's in a really got shape right now so I find it to be the most presumable that he'll be the winner of EVO '15,
Mang0 would be fine because of 3VO and what it would mean for the smash community but all in all I'm not a big fan of the GOAT.
I would be okay with Armada taking EVO if he would go Peach only but that's wishful thinking.
PPMD would be the last aspirant I guess. That would be absolutely okay, I really love his Marth.
Also, I would like to see players like Westballz, FlyAmanita, SFAT and PPU place high because I find their playstyles so nice to watch. Of course, there are always other good players like Wizzrobe, Shroomed, SilentWolf, KirbyKaze, Plup (!) and Ice who are able to punch seemingly better players into the loser's bracket.
I agree that players like Axe and Amsa are always beautiful and entertaining to watch. Does the weird Bizzarro Flame enter the contest, too? His Ganon really is something to watch out for.
Leffen's in a really got shape right now so I find it to be the most presumable that he'll be the winner of EVO '15,
Mang0 would be fine because of 3VO and what it would mean for the smash community but all in all I'm not a big fan of the GOAT.
I would be okay with Armada taking EVO if he would go Peach only but that's wishful thinking.
PPMD would be the last aspirant I guess. That would be absolutely okay, I really love his Marth.
Also, I would like to see players like Westballz, FlyAmanita, SFAT and PPU place high because I find their playstyles so nice to watch. Of course, there are always other good players like Wizzrobe, Shroomed, SilentWolf, KirbyKaze, Plup (!) and Ice who are able to punch seemingly better players into the loser's bracket.
I agree that players like Axe and Amsa are always beautiful and entertaining to watch. Does the weird Bizzarro Flame enter the contest, too? His Ganon really is something to watch out for.
Armada's recent character switch is "bad for the game". People, even people who don't play Melee competitively, know that Fox is the best player, and when you have WF Fox Ditto Mango - Leffen, LF Fox Ditto Mango - Armada, GF Fox Ditto Armada - Leffen I think it's bad for that appeal of the game.
Granted, it's more complicated than that, and Mango and Armada have some real interesting counterpicking going on. If anything, Mango mastering the fox ditto would lead to Armada playing more Peach.
I loved Shroom when he was a Doc main, but his Sheik just doesn't do anything for me on an emotional level. I wouldn't mind a future where the top tier of Melee is Westballz v Leffen. Did you see that Westballz set last weekend where every stock was a disrespectful murder-suicide?
Bizz will go nowhere in the bracket, but I'm glad he exists for entertainment value.
Granted, it's more complicated than that, and Mango and Armada have some real interesting counterpicking going on. If anything, Mango mastering the fox ditto would lead to Armada playing more Peach.
I loved Shroom when he was a Doc main, but his Sheik just doesn't do anything for me on an emotional level. I wouldn't mind a future where the top tier of Melee is Westballz v Leffen. Did you see that Westballz set last weekend where every stock was a disrespectful murder-suicide?
Bizz will go nowhere in the bracket, but I'm glad he exists for entertainment value.
I know I'm biased when it comes to Jizzarro but that's because I love playing Ganondorf. :>
Sheik is the character I find the least interesting to watch. Plup @ WTFox was the first time ever I enjoyed a Sheik player.
I think that Shroomed didn't get really better since he switched to Sheik and I find Hax way less exciting to watch as a Fox main than as a CF main
but I find it understandable that top players stick to top characters when they can't get past their limitations.
As for Armada I don't think that the switch from Peach to Fox was a real improvement and just as you stated just hurts the game.
Are you talking about the set where Westballz played against that tech-skilled multishining Fox player?
Sheik is the character I find the least interesting to watch. Plup @ WTFox was the first time ever I enjoyed a Sheik player.
I think that Shroomed didn't get really better since he switched to Sheik and I find Hax way less exciting to watch as a Fox main than as a CF main
but I find it understandable that top players stick to top characters when they can't get past their limitations.
As for Armada I don't think that the switch from Peach to Fox was a real improvement and just as you stated just hurts the game.
Are you talking about the set where Westballz played against that tech-skilled multishining Fox player?
Here is a conversation I had with Tafo on the topic:
His response:
Here's the Westballz set: https://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/3da5ny/a_silly_set_tempo_westballz_vs_shinobi_at_wtfox/
Man, have any of you guys played battletoads?
SFAT and PPU are really good players.
That's a hilarious set, the commentary done by Leffen fits it really well. He reminds me very much of a German smasher commenting like this.
So, about Westballz..
He got 3-stocked by Ken two times in EVO bracket. What the fuck.I can't deny I find it somewhat appealing that the so-called King of Smash still is in top32 on the winner's side, though. On the other side, Ice has to play Mango. I'm really looking forward to this.
That's a hilarious set, the commentary done by Leffen fits it really well. He reminds me very much of a German smasher commenting like this.
So, about Westballz..
He got 3-stocked by Ken two times in EVO bracket. What the fuck.I can't deny I find it somewhat appealing that the so-called King of Smash still is in top32 on the winner's side, though. On the other side, Ice has to play Mango. I'm really looking forward to this.